Deepika: I am definitely looking my best now

The sexy Padukone reveals her fitness secrets during a cover shoot for a magazine.

Deepika Padukone's swimsuit shoot for the new cover of a fashion magazine has once again got everyone talking about her fit body.

At 5ft 9in, and weighing 60 kilos, she confesses to the magazine that she has never loved her body as much as she does today.

"I am definitely looking my best now," she says contentedly.

Deepika adds, "While I believe that when you are in the glamour industry, you have to look your best, I also believe being skinny is not ‘hot and happening’. A really skinny person may not necessarily be fit. I endorse fitness, which combines a healthy lifestyle, diet and exercise.”

"Fitness depends on fat per cent, not body weight. Lots of skinny people have a high fat percentage. That’s unhealthy, and one day they will expand."

During the shooting for Cocktail in Cape Town, South Africa with Saif Ali Khan and Diana Penty, once the shoot was over, Deepika would take off to the village of Gansbaai with Adajania and Penty to swim with great white sharks.

As if this wasn't enough to pump her adrenaline enough, she also leaped out of a plane, not once, not twice but three times. "I wouldn't be able to do any of this if I weren't fit and healthy," she says, rather proudly.

"With Dad being an athlete, fitness was a part of growing up. Not just in food and exercise. They also ensured that we slept and woke up on time. These little habits formed the person I have become"

There was a brief period in her life when she let go and felt that she’d exercised enough. "I even put on five kilos in two months while holidaying alone in Europe. Fortunately it didn't show because of my height and the way I carried myself.”

It was only when Padukone decided to join the world of glamour that she realised she needed to get back into shape.

"Even then, I didn't push myself to knock off those kilos quickly. I just worked out with Mum at the gym every morning and slowly got back into a fitness routine,” she says.

Even now Deepika still relies on exercise and healthy eating to keep her desirable shape. A few years ago, Padukone also started practising yoga seriously. "What I like about Yasmin Karachiwala's workout is that it is all free-hand, forcing you to use your core, your own body weight."